Monday, 31 March 2008

PHNOM PENH,March 31(Bernama) -- The US Government has granted nearly US$50,000 to help Cambodia protect the endangered Asian elephant, the Vietnam news agency (VNA) quoted the US embassy in Cambodia, as saying.The sum will be pumped through the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the embassy said.Since 2002, the US Government has allocated over US$1 million for raising public awareness and implementing measures to conserve Asian Elephant in Cambodia.According to WWF, Asian elephants are listed as "endangered" on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.Asian elephant numbers are estimated to be down to around 40,000 animals left in the wild with over 600 living in Cambodia.-- BERNAMA

New York Times photographer Dith Pran sits with his wife Meoun Ser on the lawn outside the Beverly Hills Hotel, in this Tuesday, March 26, 1985, file photo in Beverly Hills, Calif. Dith Pran's death from pancreatic cancer was confirmed Sunday, March 30, 2008, by journalist Sydney Schanberg, his former colleague at The New York Times. Pran was 65. (Lennox Mclendon - AP)

Dith Pran, 65, a journalist and human rights advocate who became a public face of the horrors in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge and whose life was portrayed in the influential movie "The Killing Fields," died March 30 of pancreatic cancer at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, N.J. He was a resident of Woodbridge, N.J.For much of the early 1970s, Mr. Dith was a resourceful guide and interpreter in Cambodia for Sydney H. Schanberg of the New York Times, whose reporting on the country's civil war and the rise of the Khmer Rouge won a Pulitzer Prize. Schanberg accepted the award on behalf of himself and Mr. Dith, whom he credited with saving his life.Schanberg's partnership with Mr. Dith became the basis for "The Killing Fields" (1984), which conveyed in personal terms the brutality of the Khmer Rouge under the despot Pol Pot from 1975 to 1979. Nearly 2 million Cambodians died during those years."The Killing Fields" had a major effect on public opinion, said Ben Kiernan, who directs Yale University's Genocide Studies Program. "A mass audience saw the story of what happened in a way that had never been done before, a dramatic and accurate depiction of a horrifying experience for millions of people," he said."Pran was one of the major figures in the United States in bringing the issue of justice for Cambodian genocide to public attention, and in pushing the U.S. government to support the accountability of the Khmer Rouge," Kiernan said.In speeches and lectures, Mr. Dith gave vivid and compelling accounts of the genocide, including the death of more than 50 members of his family. During a famine, he said, he was nearly beaten to death for stealing more than the daily ration of a spoonful of rice. He was told that one of his brothers, who served in the Cambodian army, was thrown to crocodiles.The Khmer Rouge, which followed a radical communist path of social engineering, tried to remake the country by killing anyone who had political opinions or seemed educated. Mr. Dith spent four years disguising his middle-class background by dressing as a peasant and working in rice fields.Of the killing fields, or mass graves in the countryside, he once told Schanberg: "In the water wells, the bodies were like soup bones in broth. And you could always tell the killing grounds because the grass grew taller and greener where the bodies were buried."Peter Cleveland, a foreign affairs expert then working for Sen. Charles S. Robb (D-Va.), said Mr. Dith worked to help influence passage of the Cambodian Genocide Justice Act of 1994.The act, which Robb sponsored, created the State Department's Office of Cambodian Genocide Investigations, which gathered evidence against Pol Pot and his deputies for crimes against humanity.Pol Pot died in Thailand in 1998 without answering to an international tribunal. U.N.-backed trials began last year, after years of resistance from Khmer Rouge supporters in China, Thailand and the United States.The United States had supported the Khmer Rouge because it fought the communist Vietnamese, who invaded Cambodia and occupied it in the 1980s. The Khmer Rouge held Cambodia's seat at the United Nations until the early 1990s.

Mr. Dith founded an organization to collect personal stories about Khmer Rouge crimes and compiled a book of survivors' memories, "Children of Cambodia's Killing Fields" (1997)."There is no doctor who can heal me," he told the Los Angeles Times in 1991, when Pol Pot was protected in Thailand. "But I know that a man like Pol Pot, he is even sicker than I am. He is crazy in the head, because he believed in killing people. He believed in starving children. We both have the horror in our heads."Mr. Dith, whose father was a public works official, was born in 1942 in Siem Reap, in northern Cambodia near the ancient temples at Angkor Wat.He learned French and English, and his language skills brought him work as a translator of Khmer, the Cambodian language, for the U.S. military and visiting film crews. He was a receptionist at a hotel near Angkor Wat when the escalation of the Vietnam War dried up tourism.The subsequent U.S. bombing of Cambodia, the militarist coup led by Western-backed Cambodian Gen. Lon Nol and an erupting civil war led Mr. Dith, his wife, Meoun Ser, and their four children to flee to the capital city of Phnom Penh.There, Mr. Dith became a favorite of the visiting press corps. He gained a reputation for adeptness at obtaining hotel rooms and bribing teletype operators to get stories out. He also knew how to bribe officials to win access to parts of the country otherwise closed to reporters.He formed his closest working relationship with Schanberg, who said he came to regard Mr. Dith as his brother. "He got hooked on this story in the same way I did," Schanberg said. "Cambodia was ignored. The Western press corps was in Saigon. People only came in when things heated up. . . ."He wanted the story of what was happening to get out," Schanberg said. "People in such a Third World country who are suffering did not know if anyone in the outside world understood what they were going through -- crude Chinese-made rockets landing in hospitals, schoolyards, people's back yards."Mr. Dith's wife and children were able to leave Cambodia through Schanberg's connections at the U.S. Embassy. At great peril, the two men remained in the capital after the Khmer Rouge entered the city in April 1975.At one point, bullying Khmer Rouge soldiers robbed Schanberg and two English-speaking colleagues of their equipment and forced them aboard a truck likely bound for their execution.Schanberg credited Mr. Dith with their survival: Mr. Dith pleaded to board the truck and persuaded the driver that the reporters were French and were there to cover the Khmer Rouge victory with sympathy.In Phnom Penh, Schanberg was able to obtain safe passage to Thailand through the French Embassy, but Mr. Dith was among the many Cambodians turned away after the Khmer Rouge threatened embassy officials about awarding passports to help locals escape.He found work in rice fields near his home village. Like others, he was reduced to daily rations of a spoonful of rice plus whatever snails, rats, insects and tree bark he could find. Any excuse was used to beat or execute people, including unauthorized work breaks.After months of extreme malnourishment, Mr. Dith said, he took a risk one night by sneaking into a rice paddy to steal rice kernels. Two guards caught him and ordered villagers to beat him. He was left bleeding in the rain.After the Vietnamese invasion, Mr. Dith began searching for his family. Only his mother and one sister had survived. The rest had starved or had been executed.Seeking refuge in Thailand, he traveled a circuitous route of 60 miles, careful to avoid bands of Khmer Rouge soldiers, unmarked mine fields and other dangers. He was accepted into a refugee camp and was treated for malaria.The New York Times arranged for his safe passage to New York and trained him to work as a staff photographer, a position he held since 1980,while also assuming a greater role as an activist."The Killing Fields," starring Sam Waterston as Schanberg and Haing S. Ngor as Mr. Dith, elevated his name recognition. Ngor, a Cambodian doctor-turned-actor, won an Academy Award for his supporting role. Ngor was killed in a robbery in 1996.Soon after the film's release, Mr. Dith became a U.S. citizen and goodwill ambassador for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees."I'm not a politician. I'm not a hero. I'm a messenger," he said. "It's very important that we study genocide because it has happened again and again. We made a mistake because we didn't believe Cambodians would kill Cambodians."We didn't believe that one human being would kill another human being. I want you to know that genocide can happen anywhere on this planet. . . . Like one of my heroes, Elie Wiesel, who alerts the world to the horrors of the Jewish holocaust, I try to awaken the world to the holocaust of Cambodia, for all tragedies have universal implications."His marriages to Meoun Ser Dith and Kim DePaul ended in divorce.Survivors include four children from the first marriage, Titony Dith of Herndon, Hemkarey Tan of Silver Spring and Titonath Dith and Titonel Dith, both of Lynwood, Wash.; a sister; and eight grandchildren (including one named Sydney).

VIENTIANE,March 30(Xinhua) -- Vietnam and Cambodia have agreed to beef up their cooperation, especially in the fields of oil and gas, electricity, mining, cash crop cultivation, and construction material production.During the meeting between Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and his Cambodian counterpart Hun Sen here Sunday, on the occasion of their attention to the 3rd Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) Summit, they have agreed to accelerate Vietnamese-backed projects in Cambodia.Trade between Vietnam and Cambodia should reach 2 billion U.S. dollars in 2010, said the two prime ministers.The two sides have also agreed to finish their land border demarcation in 2012 as scheduled, and closely cooperate in dealing with some other issues, including those on using Mekong water resource.Starting on Sunday, the two-day summit with the theme of "Enhancement of Competitiveness via Greater Connectivity" will focus its discussion on strengthening transport connectivity, boosting cooperation between public and private sectors, implementing sustainable environment management and enhancing cooperation for GMS developments. GMS members include Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar and China.

ANUCHA CHAROENPOVIENTIANE : A joint committee could be set up to manage the area surrounding Preah Vihear temple on the Thai-Cambodian border after the prime ministers of both countries reaffirmed their commitment to solving disagreements regarding contested claims to the temple ruins.Cambodian is set to propose Preah Vihear as a Unesco World Heritage Site.Speaking after bilateral talks with Cambodian Premier Hun Sen on the sidelines of the Third Greater Mekong Subregion summit yesterday, Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej said a joint panel would be set up to try and work out issues surrounding the ancient site.To speed up the efforts, Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sok An will visit Thailand soon, Mr Samak said.''We (Thailand and Cambodia) want an easy way out because we have had a good relationship. Why do we have to make the matter more complicated?'' he asked.Mr Samak stressed that Thailand would not block Cambodia's attempt to list Preah Vihear as a World Heritage Site. The area around the temple compound remains on an overlapping zone between the two countries.The dispute over the temple was discussed by the two countries when Mr Samak paid an official visit to Cambodia.After his visit, Bangkok agreed not to contest Cambodia's bid to propose the Preah Vihear temple _ but not the surrounding land _ as a World Heritage Site, as some of the surrounding area has not been demarcated yet.Preah Vihear is on the Cambodian side but the main access to the temple is from the Thai side of the border.

Photojournalist Dith Pran, speaks at a meeting of the National Cambodia Crisis Committee at the White House as First Lady Rosalynn Carter (3rd R), wife of President Jimmy Carter, looks on in this January 29, 1980 file photo. Pran, whose harrowing experiences in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge were dramatized in the film "The Killing Fields," died on Sunday at the age of 65. He died of pancreatic cancer at a New Brunswick, New Jersey, hospital, The New York Times said on its Web site. REUTERS/The

The New York Times photographer Dith Pran is shown in this handout photo taken on March 29, 2004. Dith, whose harrowing experiences in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge were dramatized in the film "the Killing Fields", died on March 30, 2008 at the age of 65.REUTERS/The New York Times/Handout

Sun Mar 30, 2008By

RICHARD PYLE

Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK - Dith Pran, the Cambodian-born journalist whose harrowing tale of enslavement and eventual escape from that country's murderous Khmer Rouge revolutionaries in 1979 became the subject of the award-winning film "The Killing Fields," died Sunday, his former colleague said.Dith, 65, died at a New Jersey hospital Sunday morning of pancreatic cancer, according to Sydney Schanberg, his former colleague at The New York Times. Dith had been diagnosed almost three months ago.

Dith was working as an interpreter and assistant for Schanberg in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, when the Vietnam War reached its chaotic end in April 1975 and both countries were taken over by Communist forces.

Schanberg helped Dith's family get out but was forced to leave his friend behind after the capital fell; they were not reunited until Dith escaped four and a half years later. Eventually, Dith resettled in the United States and went to work as a photographer for the Times.

It was Dith himself who coined the term "killing fields" for the horrifying clusters of corpses and skeletal remains of victims he encountered on his desperate journey to freedom.The regime of Pol Pot, bent on turning Cambodia back into a strictly agrarian society, and his Communist zealots were blamed for the deaths of nearly 2 million of Cambodia's 7 million people."

That was the phrase he used from the very first day, during our wondrous reunion in the refugee camp," Schanberg said later.With thousands being executed simply for manifesting signs of intellect or Western influence — even wearing glasses or wristwatches — Dith survived by masquerading as an uneducated peasant, toiling in the fields and subsisting on as little as a mouthful of rice a day, and whatever small animals he could catch.

After Dith moved to the U.S., he became a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and founded the Dith Pran Holocaust Awareness Project, dedicated to educating people on the history of the Khmer Rouge regime.

He was "the most patriotic American photographer I've ever met, always talking about how he loves America," said AP photographer Paul Sakuma, who knew Dith through their work with the Asian American Journalists Association.Schanberg described Dith's ordeal and salvation in a 1980 magazine article titled "The Death and Life of Dith Pran." Schanberg's reporting from Phnom Penh had earned him a Pulitzer Prize in 1976.

Later a book, the magazine article became the basis for "The Killing Fields," the highly successful 1984 British film starring Sam Waterston as the Times correspondent and Haing S. Ngor, another Cambodian escapee from the Khmer Rouge, as Dith Pran.

The film won three Oscars, including the best supporting actor award to Ngor. Ngor, a physician, was shot to death in 1996 during a robbery outside his Los Angeles home. Three Asian gang members were convicted of the crime."Pran was a true reporter, a fighter for the truth and for his people," Schanberg said. "When cancer struck, he fought for his life again. And he did it with the same Buddhist calm and courage and positive spirit that made my brother so special."

Dith spoke of his illness in a March interview with The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., saying he was determined to fight against the odds and urging others to get tested for cancer."I want to save lives, including my own, but Cambodians believe we just rent this body," he said. "It is just a house for the spirit, and if the house is full of termites, it is time to leave."

Dith Pran was born Sept. 27, 1942 at Siem Reap, site of the famed 12th century ruins of Angkor Wat. Educated in French and English, he worked as an interpreter for U.S. officials in Phnom Penh. As with many Asians, the family name, Dith, came first, but he was known by his given name, Pran.After Cambodia's leader, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, broke off relations with the United States in 1965, Dith worked at other jobs. When Sihanouk was deposed in a 1970 coup and Cambodian troops went to war with the Khmer Rouge, Dith returned to Phom Penh and worked as an interpreter for Times reporters.In 1972, he and Schanberg, then newly arrived, were the first journalists to discover the devastation of a U.S. bombing attack on Neak Leung, a vital river crossing on the highway linking Phnom Penh with eastern Cambodia.

Dith recalled in a 2003 article for the Times what it was like to watch U.S. planes attacking enemy targets.

"If you didn't think about the danger, it looked like a performance," he said. "It was beautiful, like fireworks. War is beautiful if you don't get killed. But because you know it's going to kill, it's no longer beautiful."After Vietnamese forces invaded Cambodia in 1979 and seized control of territory, Dith escaped from a commune near Siem Reap and trekked 40 miles, dodging both Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge forces, to reach a border refugee camp in Thailand.

From the Thai camp he sent a message to Schanberg, who rushed from the United States for an emotional reunion with the trusted friend he felt he had abandoned four years earlier."I had searched for four years for any scrap of information about Pran," Schanberg said. "I was losing hope. His emergence in October 1979 felt like an actual miracle for me. It restored my life."

After Dith moved to the U.S., the Times hired him and put him in the photo department as a trainee. The veteran staffers "took him under their wing and taught him how to survive on the streets of New York as a photographer, how to see things," said Times photographer Marilynn Yee.

Yee recalled an incident early in Dith's new career as a photojournalist when, after working the 4 p.m. to midnight shift, he was robbed at gunpoint of all his camera equipment at the back door of his apartment."He survived everything in Cambodia and he survived that too," she said, adding, "He never had to work the night shift again."

Dith spoke and wrote often about his wartime experience and remained an outspoken critic of the Khmer Rouge regime.When Pol Pot died in 1998, Dith said he was saddened that the dictator was never held accountable for the genocide.

"The Jewish people's search for justice did not end with the death of Hitler and the Cambodian people's search for justice doesn't end with Pol Pot," he said.

Dith's survivors include his companion, Bette Parslow; his former wife, Meoun Ser Dith; a sister, Samproeuth Dith Nop; sons Titony, Titonath and Titonel; daughter Hemkarey Dith Tan; six grandchildren including a boy named Sydney; and two step-grandchildren.

Photojournalist Dith Pran, smiles during his assignment in New York in this file photo taken in 1980. Pran, whose harrowing experiences in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge were dramatized in the film "The Killing Fields," died on Sunday at the age of 65. He died of pancreatic cancer at a New Brunswick, New Jersey, hospital, The New York Times said on its Web site. REUTERS/The New York Times/Handout

Sunday, 30 March 2008

On March 30th, 1997 the opposition Sam Rainsy Party held a peaceful protest in front of the National Assembly to demand justice in Cambodia. Four grenades were thrown into the crowd of protesters. 19 people (some reports put the numbers at 16 people) were killed and about 200 people were injured, some were serious. Sam Rainsy, the target of the attacks, survived with minor injury because one of his bodyguards used his body to shield him. That boyguard's body was torn into pieces. The attackers tried to escape, Rainsy's bodyguard gave chase but the chasers were stopped by Hun Sen's bodyguards who, for very strange and suspicious reasons, were deployed in the surrounding areas. The US FBI investigated the attacks and found evidences of the involvements of Hun Sen's bodyguards but the results of the invetigations were never released to the public. 11 years on, even with the assistance of the US FBI, the investigations went nowhere and eventually forgotten.

Speaking by telephone with VOA Khmer from New York, tribunal spokeswoman Helen Jarvis said the meeting at the United Nations headquarters in New York Thursday was “fruitful.”Jarvis said because it was a “closed door meeting”, she could not go into the details. However, she said what she could say was that it was attended by 20 different countries, the legal council, the UN comptroller, and the Cambodian permanent representatives to the UN and the Cambodian delegation led by chief of the Office of Administration Sean Visoth.“Mr. Visoth was able to give a briefing to the meeting on the recent developments at the ECCC, and forward planning and there was a very fruitful discussion,” said ECCC spokeswoman Helen Jarvis.Jarvis said that she wanted to make it clear that Thursday’s meeting was not a pledging conference. “It was a discussion of where we are and where we are going and giving them some information, in particular, also providing the summary of the result of the special review of all the human resources management improvements in the ECCC,” Jarvis said, referring to the tribunal by its official name, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. The hybrid, UN-backed tribunal was expected to last 3 years and cost $56.3 million. But now court officials say they need an additional $114 million and expect the trial to last until 2011. There is a concern that the money to pay the Cambodia staff would run out at the end of April. However, Jarvis said the latest figures show that the money will last longer than the end of April. “We are confident because we have been making strong progress. We are not panicking at all,” said Jarvis. “We are confident that the court will continue to attract the support both morally and financial support and we will be able to keep going with this important work.” Jarvis said she can not say when donor countries will pledge more money for the tribunal except to say that there are a lot of discussions going on about what ECCC is doing right now.

Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy addresses people in front of a stupa during the 11th anniversary of the March 30,1997 grenade attacks in Phnom Penh. Rainsy called for the US FBI to renew its probe into the grenade attack that killed at least 16 people.(AFP/Tang Chhin Sothy)

PHNOM PENH (AFP) - Cambodia's opposition leader Sam Rainsy called Sunday for the US Federal Bureau of Investigation to renew its probe into a grenade attack that killed at least 16 people more than a decade ago.Sam Rainsy addressed supporters outside Cambodia's parliament, where exactly 11 years ago four grenades were hurled into a crowd of anti-government protesters, wounding at least 120 people including a US citizen.Despite the government's insistence that the case is still open, no one has been arrested in connection with the bloody attack."I not only appeal to the FBI to renew their investigation but also appeal to the FBI to reveal the result of their past investigations," he said."Eleven years have passed... but the truth has not yet been shown."The FBI opened a probe into the attack after US citizen Ron Abney -- who was country director of the US-funded group the International Republican Institute at the time -- was seriously wounded by shrapnel.But the investigation was hampered by uncooperative Cambodian government officials and became quickly bogged down.In a statement read out at Sunday's gathering, Abney echoed calls for a thorough investigation."Every year we call on the Cambodian government to investigate," he said.Human rights groups have accused Prime Minister Hun Sen's bodyguards of throwing the grenades -- a charge repeatedly denied by the premier.New York-based Human Rights Watch on Sunday also urged the FBI to reveal what it said was "damning evidence" about Hun Sen's connection to the bombing."Instead of trying to protect US relations with Cambodia, it should now finish what it started," said Brad Adams, the group's Asia director.Sam Rainsy also used to accuse Hun Sen of masterminding of the attack, but later recanted after his return in 2006 from self-imposed exile in France, where he had fled to avoid being imprisoned for defaming the premier.

Mittapheap means friendship in Cambodian. If you come here you'll understand why this restaurant has that name. Inside this plain, spacious dining room near the General Electric plant in Lynn, the chefs make food that makes people happy.Mittapheap is run by Hong Kim, a polite and soft-spoken man who grew up in Phnom Penh. A former billiard parlor owner, Kim arrived in Massachusetts four years ago and set out to learn English. In September, he bought Mittapheap.There's nothing pretentious. Step inside, and you'll see colorful cloths sharing an altar with a Buddha. Within seconds you'll be seated by one of Kim's sisters, who also share in the cooking.It's easy to get lost in the menu, which offers more than 100 dishes. If you come, remember that everything is made to order, and that means you won't be out the door in 15 minutes. All types of Asian fare are offered, but we asked for the Cambodian dishes. And, while we had the choice of dozens of meat dishes, we ordered vegetarian and were not disappointed.The owners like to add spice to food, and that's why we chose the hot and sour soup ($1.75). Ever try a food that didn't smell great but had an amazing taste? That was the case with this soup. They dump a lot of pepper in this soup, thick with eggs, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and tofu. It's guaranteed to clear your sinuses.We sipped on fresh coconut smoothies ($3) and listened to Cambodian pop music as we awaited our entrees.The tofu pad Thai ($5.25) was delicious and light on the soy sauce. Kim served a heaping plate of stir-fried rice noodles, topped with tofu, bean sprouts, scallions, and crushed peanuts.We were startled by the superior quality of the sweet and sour fish ($14), and the spicy Thai fish ($15) that arrived. If you want something that you might not dare cook, try the full-grown tilapia deep-fried. There's a certain charm to the way they deliver the fish to you. After you order (you can choose either tilapia or flounder), Kim goes next door to an Asian grocery store and picks out the fish.In New York or Boston, you'd pay up to three times as much for each dish and walk away happy.The sweet and sour tilapia was topped with red peppers, onions, pineapple, and garlic. The spicy Thai tilapia was covered with garlic, peppers, onions and lime.Sometimes, even after a good meal, you don't want to think about the food, the restaurant, or the conversation. The opposite is true of this place. It's not loaded with fine art or marble lobbies, and there's no fancy bar to stand around at while waiting for your table. It's about fine food and good people. And even after an enormous meal, you might even want to come back the next day.

Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin holds babies during a visit to a shelter for victims of sexual exploitation in Siem Reap northwestern province of Cambodia, Saturday, March 29, 2008. Martin has taken his fight against child trafficking to Cambodia. Martin, who arrived in the country Wednesday, met with Interior Minister Sar Kheng and visited various projects run by non-governmental organizations fighting child trafficking and sexual exploitation.(AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

By KER MUNTHIT –

SIEM REAP,Cambodia (AP) — Ricky Martin met with victims of sexual exploitation Saturday during a visit to Cambodia to promote the fight against human trafficking.Martin held infants and listened to a 14-year-old rape victim's song during his visit to a shelter in the northwestern city of Siem Reap, home of the famed Angkor temples."She sings like an angel," Martin said after the girl finished a song she composed about the plight of trafficking victims.The girl was among 65 victims sheltered at the rescue center of Afesip, a French non-governmental group working to combat human trafficking in Cambodia.The pop star also held the 3-month-old daughter of a 22-year-old woman who was sold by her father to a brothel and is now HIV-positive. The woman broke down in tears as she urged Martin to keep fighting against human trafficking."I'm not going to stop," Martin said, pounding his fist on his knee as he sat on a tiled floor. "All of you are my heroes. You are a gift of my life."Martin, who arrived in the country Wednesday, met with Interior Minister Sar Kheng and visited various projects run by non-governmental organizations fighting child trafficking and sexual exploitation.Martin learned of Cambodia's child trafficking problems in February during a three-day U.N. conference in Vienna. He joined Oscar-winning actress Emma Thompson, Egyptian first lady Suzanne Mubarak and other dignitaries in calling for action.In its annual human rights report released recently, the U.S. State Department called Cambodia "a source, destination and transit country for men, women, and children trafficked for sexual exploitation and labor."Still, Martin praised Cambodia as an example of some "solid and concrete" efforts against human trafficking."The fact that you have 200 non-governmental groups working in the country working on human trafficking is unheard of," he said.Martin said he plans to take what he learned in Cambodia and use it to "motivate people, organizations, governments in Latin America" in their efforts to combat the same problems. The Ricky Martin Foundation does most of its work in Latin America.Martin was due to leave Cambodia on Sunday.

If her native tongue was one commonly spoken in the U.S. instead of the less familiar Khmer, Thana Ouk might have more help at school. She would have access to classes in her language and programs attuned to her cultural heritage. Her mother, who speaks no English, would be better able to communicate with teachers.But Thana, a junior at Roosevelt High School, is Cambodian and can find few services tailored to her needs. Instead, she falls under the broad umbrella of "Asian" for public school funding and testing purposes.

Because many families of Asian heritage are well-educated and have comparative material advantages, and because students in the broad Asian category often perform as well as or better than white students on standardized tests, resources are scarce for Asians who are struggling in public schools.

But Thana is struggling with her schoolwork, especially reading. Her four older siblings never graduated from high school, and now the 17-year-old is fighting to avoid the same fate."I've been here, like, ever since I was born, but I'm not really fluent with language," said Thana, a slight girl with black hair and plastic frame glasses. "Sometimes I'll be reading a story or something in the book, and then I'll somehow get lost in the wording."

Some educators have begun to call disadvantaged Asians an invisible minority, unseen because their low test scores are masked when lumped with higher achieving counterparts. These students, often from Southeast Asia, go unnoticed for other reasons too. Their numbers are small. There's a dearth of bilingual programs in their languages, counselors fluent in Asian languages and culture and advocates in general. Few schools can communicate with their parents who don't speak English.

At an Illinois State Board of Education meeting this year, several activists urged the state to report Asian achievement scores by specific ethnicity instead of lumping them together.

"Why not separate them so that everyone can use [the data] to help their own people?" asked Juanita Salvador-Burris, who argued at the meeting in Chicago. Many Southeast Asians, in particular, arrive as refugees from war-torn countries, and their children struggle with poverty and language—challenges not always shared by other Asian ethnicities."These kids need the same kind of supports that other groups . . . receive—extensive academic, remedial and socio-emotional support," said Sally Ewing, a former principal at Passages Charter School, which is run by Asian Human Services, a social services agency serving Chicago's pan-Asian community. "When you talk about funding grants . . . we have to be much more powerful in our case because there is this myth that Asians are doing very well."

A 2002 U.S. Department of Education study—one of the rare national reports examining Asians by ethnicity—found that Southeast Asians, including Cambodians, Laotians and Hmong have reading and math scores comparable with Latino and African-American students.California, home to about one-third of the country's Asian population, is one of the few states where the public school system separates Asian students' test scores by ethnicity. For all 8th grade Asians, 64 percent are passing in English, a rate higher than whites across the state. Cambodians and Laotians, however, are passing at a 30 percent rate."We have students, sometimes ages 15 to 16, who come from refugee camps [and] have never held a pencil or opened a book," said Richard Norman, principal at Senn High School on Chicago's North Side. "They struggle just like any of the other minorities in the school."But some argue that because of what they call the "model minority myth"—a belief that all Asians excel in academics—those who struggle do not receive the same attention as African-American or Hispanic students.

"There are also a lot of outside organizations that work to help improve [African-American and Hispanic] scores," said Alvin Yu, a director at the Chinese Mutual Aid Association in Chicago. "There are fewer working toward those ends for Asians, partially because of this perception."

Southeast Asian populations in many school districts are relatively small. Asians make up only 3 percent of the student population in Chicago Public Schools."There's a bigger challenge when it's a very small group and not as well-established a community from which to draw either teachers or assistants," said Ross Wiener, policy director at the Education Trust, a reform think tank in Washington, D.C.

Of the nearly 30,000 Southeast Asians in the six-county area, most are concentrated in Chicago, primarily the North Side neighborhoods of Albany Park and Uptown. In Ouk's case, her mother, Tha, came from a family of farmers in Cambodia and had no education. During the genocidal rule of the Khmer Rouge from 1975-1979, much of the educated class was exterminated. Tha Ouk fled with her family in 1978 and spent the next seven years in refugee camps before securing visas to the U.S. Now she lives in a small Albany Park apartment with four of her grandchildren and Thana, subsisting on a mix of public assistance and what help her older children can provide. At home, Thana speaks in Khmer, though she mixes in some English with her nieces and nephews, who are half-Cambodian and half-Puerto Rican. After school, Thana spends most days at the Cambodian Association of Illinois, a newly renovated community center on the North Side. There, she attends workshops, teaches traditional Cambodian dance and receives tutoring. She says she feels uncomfortable getting help elsewhere.

"When you ask [a] question, [teachers] look at you like, 'What? You're asking me the question? Aren't you supposed to be the smart one?' " she said with a plaintive smile. "I was like, 'No. . . . I'm the same as everybody else. I don't see why you're looking at me that way.' "aahmed@tribune.comdlittle@tribune.com

An official from the Petroleum Authority of Cambodia on Friday said that even if Cambodia can extract natural oil and gases from the Cambodian seabeds in 2011, the high prices of petrol in Cambodia will not drop lower than the prices of petrol in the world markets.

Mr Te Duong Dara, Secretary General of the Petroleum Authority of Cambodia, in a press conference in Phnom Penh on the management of oil and gas revenues for the alleviation of poverty in Cambodia, said that Cambodia cannot isolate itself from the rest of the world, so the local prices of oil and oil exports will have to depend on world market prices.

He stressed that the prices of Cambodian oil cannot be set differently from other countries of the world. Otherwise, all other countries will flock to buy oil from Cambodia and the Cambodian oil reserves will dry out very soon.

In relation to the above issue Mr Sok Hach, an economist based in Cambodia, declined to make any comments regarding the issue.

But Mr Son Chhay, a parliamentarian from the opposition Sam Rainsy Party, said there were so much secrecy regarding the oil issues. He said: “We have observed that there were so many hidden secrets regarding the oil explorations because the agreements made between the government and the oil exploration companies have never been released to the public. What we are very concerned about is the embezzlement of oil revenues by the persons who control those oil revenues.”

Mr Te Duong Dara’s comments were made at a time when there are anticipations that Cambodia can extract oil and gases for the first time from Block A in the next 3 years- that is in 2011.

He did not mention how much oil and gases can be extracted and how much revenues can be generated. But he noted that Cambodia’s partners in the oil exploration were not only the US oil company Chevron but they include the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and some donor countries as well.

Based on the research conducted by the United Nations, the World Bank and other institutions in 2007, the oil reserves under the Cambodian seabeds were estimated to be about 2 billion barrels and natural gases at 283 million litres, which will generate revenues to the tune of 6 billion US dollars in the next two decades, based on the world market prices.

Other than Block A oil wells that Cambodia plans to extract for the first time in 2011, Cambodia has contracted with Singaporean and Malaysian companies to extract oil from Block B, with Hong Kong and Macau companies to extract oil from Block C, with Chinese companies in Block D and with Indonesian and Kuwaiti companies, Energy, in Block E. //

Note: The "overlapping areas" in the oil-rich seabed off the coast of Sihanoukville are locating inside the Cambodian maritime borders. In a sense, if Cambodia agree to share 50% of oil and gas revenue with Thailand then it's like Cambodia is giving half of its oil and gases to Thailand.

Cambodia is willing to re-start the negotiation with Thailand regarding the sharing of seabed energy reserves as well as the disputed maritime borders between the two countries where there are huge oil reserves.Mr Te Duong Dara, Secretary General of the Petroleum Authority of Cambodia told reporters on Friday that the negotiation can be re-started in the middle of April.He stressed that Cambodia is seeking the agreements for the equal share of oil revenue of 50% each between the two sides but the Thai side has requested for more share than the Cambodian side.The disagreements between Cambodia and Thailand have dragged on since 1995, and that including the disagreements regarding the sharing of natural oil and gases in the seabed within the overlapping areas of the Gulf of Thailand.The leaders of the two countries failed to reach any agreements at their formal meeting during the visit of former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to Cambodia in 2006. //

THE flamboyant and privileged lifestyle of one of America's richest heiresses has been laid bare in a custody battle over a Cambodian orphan.Elizabeth "Libet" Johnson, 57, an heir to the $US170 billion ($184 billion) Johnson & Johnson pharmaceuticals empire, has been portrayed by a former boyfriend as ruthless, deceitful and predatory, using her enormous wealth to get her way.Lionel Bissoon, a Trinidad-born celebrity weight-loss doctor, has been fighting Ms Johnson for nearly three years over a five-year-old Cambodian boy whom both claim to have legally adopted. The case has drawn accusations of "legal kidnapping" and extortion.Last week, in Manhattan's state appeals court, Ms Johnson appealed against a judge's decision to revoke a previous judgement in her favour.Ms Johnson, whose grandfather, Robert Wood Johnson, built his company into a pharmaceutical giant, has remained silent outside court, unlike the 47-year-old Dr Bissoon.He pointed out that she had five husbands before she was 40 and claimed she had been romantically linked with many men, including singer Michael Bolton.Dr Bissoon, who wrote The Cellulite Cure, became romantically involved with Ms Johnson in 2003. At the time, she was one of his patients. He says she began inviting him to her apartment in the Trump International Hotel and Tower.Valued at one point at $US62 million, the property was so big that she once considered installing a basketball court and pool. Dr Bissoon admitted that life with her had its attractions, including jetting in her private plane between various homes, one of them a farm in upstate New York.Within months they were talking about adoption and, later that year, Ms Johnson found an orphan called Rath Chan in Cambodia, where she was involved in setting up an orphanage.Temporarily getting around a US ban on adopting Cambodians, they brought the boy to New York on a medical visa in August 2003. He was given the new name of William, a $US100,000 trust fund and two nannies, and installed at the Johnson apartment. But by the following summer, the Bissoon-Johnson relationship was virtually over.Ms Johnson, who has four adult children, told Dr Bissoon that she intended to adopt the child on her own.He initially agreed but changed his mind after the heiress banned him from seeing William after a row at her apartment.Two years ago, a judge named Ms Johnson as the child's mother but revoked the order last year, citing the heiress' "substantial, material misrepresentations".The judge was unimpressed to learn belatedly that Ms Johnson had failed to disclose that she had originally tried to adopt the boy with Dr Bissoon, and that he had actually adopted William in Cambodia in 2004. The socialite had also not disclosed that she had recently been treated for a drinking problem.The four-judge panel has reserved its judgement.DAILY TELEGRAPH

Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin, center, talks with victims of sexual exploitation during a visit to a shelter, in Siem Reap northwestern province of Cambodia, Saturday, March 29, 2008. Martin has taken his fight against child trafficking to Cambodia. Martin, who arrived in the country Wednesday, met with Interior Minister Sar Kheng and visited various projects run by non-governmental organizations fighting child trafficking and sexual exploitation.(AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin gestures as he lulls a baby during his visit to a shelter for victims of sexual exploitation in Siem Reap, northwestern Cambodia, Saturday, March 29, 2008. The singer has taken his fight against child trafficking to Cambodia. Martin, who arrived in the country Wednesday, met with Interior Minister Sar Kheng and visited various projects run by non-governmental organizations fighting child trafficking and sexual exploitation.(AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin, right, listens to victims talk about their experiences during a visit to a shelter for victims of sexual exploitation, in Siem Reap northwestern province of Cambodia, Saturday, March 29, 2008. Martin has taken his fight against child trafficking to Cambodia. Martin, who arrived in the country Wednesday, met with Interior Minister Sar Kheng and visited various projects run by non-governmental organizations fighting child trafficking and sexual exploitation.(AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin holds babies during a visit to a shelter for victims of sexual exploitation in Siem Reap northwestern province of Cambodia, Saturday, March 29, 2008. Martin has taken his fight against child trafficking to Cambodia. Martin, who arrived in the country Wednesday, met with Interior Minister Sar Kheng and visited various projects run by non-governmental organizations fighting child trafficking and sexual exploitation.(AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

PHNOM PENH,CAMBODIA: Pop star Ricky Martin has taken his fight against child trafficking to Cambodia.Martin, who arrived in the country Wednesday (26 Mar), met with Interior Minister Sar Kheng and visited various projects run by non-governmental organizations fighting child trafficking and sexual exploitation."This is a fact-finding mission for us," Angel Saltos, executive director of the Ricky Martin Foundation, told The Associated Press on Saturday (29 Mar). "He wanted to see for himself."Martin learned of Cambodia's child trafficking problems in February during a three-day U.N. conference in Vienna. He joined Oscar-winning actress Emma Thompson, Egyptian first lady Suzanne Mubarak and other dignitaries in calling for action.Some 2.5 million people are involved in forced labor as a result of trafficking, and 161 countries _ on every continent and in every type of economy _ are affected by the crime, the U.N. said.Most victims are between the ages of 18 and 24, and an estimated 1.2 million children are trafficked each year, U.N. figures show.The Ricky Martin Foundation does most of its work in Latin America. (AP)

Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin, center, meets with victims of sexual exploitation during a visit to a shelter, in Siem Reap northwestern province of Cambodia, Saturday, March 29, 2008. Martin has taken his fight against child trafficking to Cambodia. Martin, who arrived in the country Wednesday, met with Interior Minister Sar Kheng and visited various projects run by non-governmental organizations fighting child trafficking and sexual exploitation.(AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

PHNOM PENH,Cambodia (AP) — Pop star Ricky Martin has taken his fight against child trafficking to Cambodia.Martin, who arrived in the country Wednesday, met with Interior Minister Sar Kheng and visited various projects run by non-governmental organizations fighting child trafficking and sexual exploitation."This is a fact-finding mission for us," Angel Saltos, executive director of the Ricky Martin Foundation, told The Associated Press on Saturday. "He wanted to see for himself."Martin learned of Cambodia's child trafficking problems in February during a three-day United Nations conference in Vienna. He joined Oscar-winning actress Emma Thompson, Egyptian first lady Suzanne Mubarak and other dignitaries in calling for action.Some 2.5 million people are involved in forced labor as a result of trafficking, and 161 countries — on every continent and in every type of economy — are affected by the crime, the U.N. said.

Nearly every day for more than 14 years, Tony Oeung has opened his Family Donut Shop in North Seattle during the morning's wee hours and greeted customers with a smile.Starting at 5 a.m., or earlier, he typically works 10 or more hours a day, and his only days off are major holidays. In 2006, he took his first vacation.Yet, there's no complaining from Oeung, who fled Cambodia at the tail end of the Khmer Rouge regime, an era of mass Cambodian genocide during the late 1970s."It's not too bad," Oeung said of the long hours. "Where I am from, it was a pretty tough life. So to be here and talk with customers and drink coffee and eat my doughnuts is pretty good."Oeung's journey from northern Cambodia began in 1979, when he and his wife, Vanna, left for Thailand."We wanted to get away from the Communists," Oeung said. "We felt that country wouldn't do us any good."They lived in a refugee camp for more than a year and then went to the Philippines to learn English. In December 1981, the couple immigrated to San Diego, where Oeung continued to study English and was hired to do assembly line work on personal computers for the minimum wage.Seeing no future in his job, Oeung started working at a doughnut shop owned by a family member.After learning the trade, he opened his own store in La Mesa, Calif., and then he moved to Seattle in late 1993 to open his store here.Regulars of Family Donut, at the end of a small strip development at 2100 N. Northgate Way, say Oeung's shop is a home away from home."It's like an old barbershop. People can come in and joke around," said Mark Kessler, one of the regulars who stops by with his adult son, Jonathan. "I don't know what he does with them, but they are really good."Family Donut has more than 20 pastry choices, and the cost is pretty reasonable.A doughnut goes for 65 cents to $1.25, depending on the confection, and it costs $6.95 for a dozen doughnuts. The shop also sells coffee, milk, juice and soda pop.Customers say they travel from all over the Seattle area to buy his doughnuts, and Oeung said some customers have taken his treats on plane trips to Chicago.Bruce Belew, who works at the nearby Nexus Hotel, said he's been going to the Family Donut shop almost daily for 10 years because the doughnuts are handmade and taste better than those of a chain.Oeung, 49, said he used to make the doughnuts, a process that begins around 1 a.m., but the responsibility of creating up to 100 dozen doughnuts a day has been handed over to his brother-in-law so Oeung can focus on managing the store.The doughnuts are made with one mixer and a single fryer and frosted on a 7-foot-by-3-foot table in the back of the 850-square-foot shop.The only other employee is Oeung's wife, who met him in Cambodia a year before they left the country. The couple will celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary on Oct. 17.Vanna Oeung said she works in the afternoon and early evening so the store can stay open until 7 p.m., and so her husband can break away for his daily workout.Only on Sundays does the store close early -- at 5 p.m.Oeung, who became a U.S. citizen in 2001, said he likes to keep the operation small, and there's no point to complain about the daily grind."It's a little too late to do something else," he says with a laugh. "Sometimes I am tired and I get up and moan and groan a bit, but someone has to do it."Vanna Oeung said family members have encouraged Tony to slow down, but he dismisses such talk."We will not make a million in this business, but he just enjoys it," she said."He doesn't want to do anything else."P-I reporter Craig Harris can be reached at 206-448-8138 orcraigharris@seattlepi.com.

Tharum started his blog in June 2004 while a student at the NationalUniversity of Management and working for the Open Forum for Cambodia, a Cambodian NGO devoted to digital divide issues. He worked as a content editor for the Khmer language portal.Tharum became a celebrity when his blog was featured on the front page of the Cambodia Daily (the photo above was taken during that interview). His fame circled the globe a few days later when another article appeared in Wired.I first "met" Tharum when he left a comment (one of the first!) on my blog in August, 2004. I plan to get back to Cambodia in 2006 and hope to meet him face-to-face.

1. A friend described you as an "IT Catcher" - can you explain what that means?

As always, young people are at the forefront of transforming their societies through the information revolution. I am personally interested in technology and I can quickly learn do something with it.

2. What do Cambodian people think of blogs? Are they familiar with blogs?

Do your friends and colleagues have blogs? What do they think of YOUR blog? A friend believes it is a tool he can publish thoughts, political analysis, and news review. He usually writes letter to the editor of the Cambodia Daily newspaper to voice his concern about the country. Few people find it important, while the rest think that sleeping is a lot better. Few months after I created my personal weblog, I shared it with some friends. They, as far as I know, were not very interested in this until my weblog was featured on the front-page of the Cambodia Daily. Since then some of them have created their own blogs. I was elated that some of them expressed support of what I have done so far with blogging.

3. What benefits has your blog brought to you?

It is quite interesting to interact with people from different places all over the world. Some visitors write email to ask about working and traveling in Cambodia. This is good as I always want my home country, Cambodia, to be known to the outside world.

4. Do you think blogging will really take off in Cambodia? What about the introduction of Khmer-Language software?

5. You worked for the Community Information Web Portal Cambodia for a couple years as content collector. What was the most interesting part of your job? What are some lessons learned for providing local content for local people?

People need information. I was one of few others to carry out this work to help them.

6. In the provinces, people can access Khmer language content via the CICs. There are tremendous barriers - illiteracy, lack of electricity, etc — how do they get people into the CICS to read the content? What has been the local response to the content you've developed?

I believe the Community Information Centres project, funded by the Asia Foundation, plays an integral part in connecting provincial people to information at this beginning stage. Government officials and Non-Governmental Organization workers are the primary target. Students, monks, and ordinary people can be key players in further disseminating information to their villages. After the centres and the portal were established, we launched a national promotion campaign to inform our audiences. However, we do believe, great service and content will make people to help this further more. Of course, it is interesting when we receive email from the center asking for information on how to cultivate productively.

7. How are Khmer people trained to use computers in Cambodia?

Short training course are available from private schools and some Non-Governmental Organizations throughout Phnom Penh. A trainer with a manual can give an introduction of computer basic skills to as many trainees as it fit in a room. The very first thing to be familiar with computer is learn how to type, typing skill. Only some serious learners find books important to understand more.8. What is your biggest hope for the future of technology/Web/Internet in Cambodia and bridging the digital divide?

I do believe appropriate technology deployment will benefit poor and rural people. Young people are quick learners. The skills will help them find job easily. In another point, it empowers Cambodia to be a knowledge-based and democratic society.

It takes some time to be familiar with it. However, it is difficult to learn it as quickly and easily as you first learn to type in English. With courage, everyone can do it.

(In case you're wondering, the most famous blogger is Cambodia's ex-king)Photo courtesy of Matt Reed, writer for the Cambodia Daily. (Note: Tharum tells me that this is his favorite casual shirt)Cross-posted on Beth's Blog

Saturday, 29 March 2008

After escaping the long war and the Khmer Rouge genocide, hundreds of Cambodian refugees reached safety in America, only to wind up, decades later, deported to a land many never even knew. Isolated and ill equipped to fit into society, they form a strange sub-culture in one of the world's poorest countries, turned into a human dumping ground in yet another shameful sidebar to America's relentless search for Homeland Security.

(This article was published at this blog with the permission of Mr. Gluckan. I wish to thank him for his permission).

BY THE TIME TRIP AND YOUNGSTER broke into the dingy flat in Phnom Penh, seeking missing pal Ver Chan, the smell of misery in his apartment had thickened into decay. A full day, maybe two, had passed since Chan, 34, from California, scribbled a note to his family, knotted a rope around his neck, and ended his terse, tormented stay in Cambodia.It took the pair another day to rustle up enough friends, and cash, for the cremation. Chan was tucked into a simple wooden casket. Then, cloth tied around their faces because of the stench, six of them hefted the stiff, blanket-wrapped body of Chan into the flames.Perhaps 20 minutes passed from prayers to funeral pyre.Each had the exact same thought: “Man, it could be me in that box.”Indeed, all of them – and more than 150 homeboys from across the United States - hang by a thin rope in Cambodia. Arms and chests covered in tattoos, they wear baggy clothes, ride massive motorbikes and hang in local hip-hop clubs, comprising an unique subculture that could be the strangest sidebar to America’s war on terrorism.Locals call them DJs, a reference to their loud rap music, hood-heavy slang, entire gangsta persona.America classifies them as deportees, excess baggage jettisoned in the anti-immigration fervor of Homeland Security. They are shipped to their ancestral land in expulsions derided by human rights advocates, without consideration of age, mental state or family situation. Few read, and many cannot speak Cambodian. With a history of mental problems, Chan, nicknamed Rascal, became the first suicide in early December.The approach of Christmas, alone in the land he escaped as a child, wasn’t the only spur to his mounting anxiety. Friends say Chan had been delving deeper into drugs, mainly a local version of met-amphetamine. His week began with a beating in a brawl on notorious Street 51, a stretch of hostess bars and discos that Chan’s crowd calls “the Strip.” Bruised and despondent over the prospect of never again seeing the teen-age son he left behind in southern California, he wrote a short note to his mother: “You won’t have to worry about me ever again,” he promised.Then, a few days after his first birthday in Cambodia since she carried him to supposed safety a quarter-century ago, he hung himself.Many feel America provided the rope.“He was a sweet, gentle, fragile guy,” laments Holly Bradford, a clinical psychologist from Boston who runs Korsang, a Cambodian needle-exchange program that employed Chan and two dozen other deportees from America. “But he had serious problems, mental issues,” she adds. “Sending him here was a death sentence.”Like most deportees, Chan was born in Cambodia, arriving in the US as a child refugee, fleeing the Khmer Rouge, blamed for the death of up to a fourth of the Cambodian population in the late 1970s. Yet some deportees were born in Thai refugee camps, never setting foot in Cambodia until banished here in an unusual program of expulsions that began in 2002.“This is the only place in the world where you have this situation,” notes Bill Herod, an American aid worker in Cambodia who has been helping with resettlement since the first deportees arrived. “What’s goofy is these are people who grew up in the United States. By any measure of common sense or fairness they are Americans and don’t belong here.”Thus far, 170 men – and one woman - have been expelled to Cambodia thanks to harsh new laws enacted in 1996, designed to clear courts, prisons and holding cells of illegal immigrants and foreign criminals. Gone was individual consideration of specific cases, and any leniency.Another 1,500 could yet face the same fate. They include those who committed crimes as juveniles, served their time and moved on. A Texas construction worker was deported to Cambodia for public urination. “Don’t Pee in Public,” ran one headline about his case. Others expelled include a 79-year-old man and many with mental illness.One man at Chan’s funeral says he isn’t Cambodian, but Laotian. Human Rights Watch highlighted his plight in the recent report, “Forced Apart.” His parents were among countless tribal people displaced as the American conflict in Vietnam spread into Laos and Cambodia decades ago. The timing of his birth, in Cambodia, on the run, sealed his future fate.Bunreas Pin, or Boomer, a rapper from Stockton, California, can muster no recollection of his new home. Until being flown here in chains, he spent his whole life in America – except three months as a toddler in a Thai refugee camp. “It was a total, total shock,” he says of his first glimpse of Cambodia. His exodus inspired his recent rap album: “Straight Refugeez.” The refrain of the title song sums up their status: “we’re America’s nightmare.”Like most deportees, Boomer was a gang member in the USA. All were criminals. Many served their prison time only to find, because of tough new American immigration rules, retroactively applied to long-ago misdeeds, there would be no chance of parole or rehabilitation – ever.Instead, they find themselves sentenced to life, in Cambodia.“It’s like you do the time, and then do it all over again,” says Boomer, who readily concedes his mistakes - spraying graffiti, running with a bad crowd, keeping guns. All this was while he was a teen. “I was just a kid,” he notes. After two years in jail, “I figured I’d get out and start all over.” Instead, like the rest, he ponders his penance daily.“I felt like I was tricked,” adds Dicer, who grew up in Utah, Texas and California. Deportation wasn’t even a possibility when he went to court. “This is like a cruel and unusual punishment,” he says after four years in Cambodia. “America is home. We don’t belong here.”There certainly is no warm welcome at the airport in Phnom Penh, where groups of 10-12 men arrive periodically, but unpredictably. Shackled on the flight, they are turned over to Cambodian authorities – essentially dumped cold turkey in one of the world’s poorest and most corrupt countries.“They are generally scared, in shock,” says Herod, who has been meeting the deportees since March 2002. As the first group was in the air, attorneys fighting the deportations in America called for help. He promised to meet them. “There was no program in place, no plan for resettlement, nothing.”Deportees say they were greeted by guards who shook them down for “entry fees.” Intimidated, alone in a land they knew only from nightmarish tales of relatives, some were coerced out of hundreds of dollars.Herod began knocking on doors, begging resettlement funding. As an American in Cambodia since 1994, Herod saw this as one more wrong on a very long list. A conscientious objector during the US war in Vietnam, he has been involved Southeast Asian charities ever since.He patched together a program to sponsor new arrivals, provide supplies and transitional housing for the needy. “It was very basic,” he concedes. “At the beginning we worked out of a guesthouse. A guy would arrive with a serious drug problem, and there was nothing we could do but lock him in a room with a TV and say, ‘Just Say No’.”As the number of deportees increased, so did news coverage, prompting American aide. “They were shamed into it,” says one deportee. A three-year grant of $800,000 was announced in September 2005, by USAID that led to the launch of the Returnee Integration Support Program (RISP).A community center for the deportees was established, with computer training and job placement help. George Ellis, an American psychologist who worked in Kosovo and Guatemala, began counseling in October 2005. Besides a transitional facility offering three-month stays, there was another house for those with special needs, like mental problems.“There basically are no services for the mentally ill in Cambodia,” Ellis explained soon after he arrived in Cambodia. The entire country has only a dozen beds, and a couple mental health workers. Ellis had his hands full. “Basically, all these guys are traumatized. Or doubly traumatized.“Just getting to America involved all kinds of trauma for them. Then, they are told the place they live isn’t where they belong,” he adds. “They are not only deported, they are told they can never come back, that they aren’t American. It’s a terrible, terrible blow to them.”The Statue of Liberty and pledge to welcome the world’s downtrodden to the contrary, America is in a rage nowadays over immigration. Rhetoric is on the rise, compassion at a low. Many talk of erecting a giant fence around the border, and not just extremists, even presidential candidates.“This is a cyclical thing in US history,” says Rachel Rosenbaum, a lawyer specializing in deportation issues at the Center for Human Rights and International Justice at Boston College. “Look back a century or more, and immigrants have repeatedly been the scapegoat.”Cambodian refugees, she says, got caught up in reforms dating to 1996, when new laws targeted hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants mired in the US criminal system. To speed deportations, the new codes removed appeals, hearings, reconsideration. Basically, any foreign national in jail for a felony, or convicted of one, could be deported quickly.The Cambodians presented a quandary for a variety of reasons. First off, they weren’t illegal immigrants at all, but refugees invited to America. A bit over 200,000 people of Cambodian ethnicity reside in the US, according to a recent census. An estimated three-fourths came after the US bombing campaign and fall of Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge in 1975, according to a study by Bill Ong Hing, professor of law and Asian American studies at the University of California, Davis (near the state capital of Sacramento).Secondly, most came as stateless refugees. International law may oblige countries to accept repatriation of their nationals, but Cambodians – along with Laotians and Vietnamese – comprise an enormous exception, granted asylum, and permanent residency in the US. However owhOWhh1America redefines the notion of “permanent,” special agreements were needed to legitimize the deportations, including approval from Cambodia.Extreme pressure was applied to Cambodia to sign the deal, says Roland Eng, who was Cambodia’s ambassador to Washington, DC, when a deal was pushed in 2002 over his objections. “I was totally opposed to this. The US told us that there would be no more visas issued, and our kids couldn’t go to school in America. They forced the deal on us.”Many see it as yet another low-point in US foreign policy, all the more shameful considering America’s role in the strife that made them refugees. “This is a worse than just a failure of US refugee policy,” notes Herod. “To just ship all these gang members here, to a country ill-equipped to handle them. I worry the US is creating real long-term problems for Cambodia, not to mention failing these guys it took in in the first place.”Bradford concurs: “Some of these guys are bad to the bone, and not likely to change. But they were kids when they went to America. Cambodia didn’t create these guys, or their problems, America did.US officials in Cambodia declined to discuss the deportations, saying it was an immigration matter. However, one senior US official confided: “It’s morally reprehensible.”Laos and Vietnam have still refused the deportations.With an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in America, and so much attention focused on Iraq and terror, not to mention a flagging economy, few expect any change in US immigration policy soon. However, a small network of groups work for reconsideration, and moderation.“Mainly, we would like to restore judicial discretion,” says Rosenbaum. “The lack of discretion is really un-American,” she notes. “No other area of law could be like this. It’s basically one strike and you’re out.”Change, she said, would have to come not through court, but legislation. Yet, no sane politician would champion this issue in the current climate. And victims of this alleged injustice hardly inspire empathy with their tough language, gang tattoos and history of crime.“There is no poster boy for this cause,” concedes Many Uch, a Seattle man who has been filling the role, however reluctantly since late 2006, when a documentary featured his case and that of two others facing deportation. Since then, Uch has been speaking to schools and community groups. With his calm, measured speech, few would guess at his felonious past.Born during the reign of the Khmer Rouge – he turned 32 in January – he never knew his father. Separated in the chaos of the Vietnamese invasion in 1979, his mother fled to a Thai refugee camp. Arriving in American in 1984, his was an all-too typical immigrant upbringing: single parent baffled by the new culture; grim public housing; gang membership.“When I was 18, I got involved in a robbery. I was the driver and there were guns in the car.” Rather than risk testifying against friends, he pled guilty. That was his lawyer’s advice – terrible as it turned out. But it was 1994, and the deportations hadn’t been dreamed up.Sentenced to 55 months in jail, Uch served 40. Instead of release, he was sent straight to an immigration detention facility. The 1996 laws had taken hold. Once a permanent resident, he was now unwelcome. Anywhere.What followed was a legal limbo. “Some guys get stuck in immigration for 5-10 years,” notes deportee Dicer, who spent four year in such confinement, which he called worse than prison. “You had no rights.”Uch decided to fight. Pouring over legal texts in the detention center library, he began filing motions, and urged others to join the legal battle. “I figured, if enough of us filed, it would be so expensive, they’d have to do something, like give us a hearing.”Instead, he elicited the attention of Jay Stansell, a Seattle public defender who fought all the way to the American Supreme Court. Stansell offered an early echo of Guantanamo Bay - holding people indefinitely was cruel and unusual punishment. He won, and thousands were released.Then, Cambodia signed the deportation deal. Kim Ho Ma and Loeun Lun, featured in the documentary with Uch, have both been banished. Uch tries to live day to day, a pressure that contributed to the breakup of his recent engagement. “You cannot plan for the future,” he says.Nearly six years have passed since the first child refugees were sent back to Cambodia. Some hit the ground running, picked up by family members, and make a new life. Perhaps 10-20 percent, says the counselor Ellis.Another 30 percent struggle to get by. Most go through a wild phase upon arrival, hitting the clubs and partying hard. Drugs are cheap and plentiful in Cambodia. “Chicks love us,” notes Boomer. For guys who have spent years locked up, freedom in Cambodia can be a real high.Then comes the crash. “Oh yeah, that’s the traumatized stage,” Boomer says. “Everyone goes through it. A lot of guys stall, think things will change and this will be over. But you have to accept it and get on.”Many never come to terms with the new reality, or fall through the cracks, just as they did in the US. Even a decade or more after arriving in the US, Cambodian immigrants made significantly less money than the national norm or other Asian immigrants, according to Professor Hing. The reasons aren’t entirely clear, but they tended to be poorer and less skilled.Plus, they were fleeing perhaps the worst genocide the world has seen. An October 2006 study in American Journal of Public Health noted astronomically high rates of depression and Post-Trauma Syndrome among former Cambodian refugees, even decades on.How many deportees suffer from the same symptoms is anyone’s guess. Ellis won’t be making any assessment. He left Cambodia last year after the US abruptly ended funding for resettlement, a year earlier than promised.“We had to cut staff drastically, and close the transitional house,” says Sonec Tan, who worked for RISP and stayed on with a program run by deportees like himself. Among those tossed out on the street when the transitional house closed was Ver Chan.Tan shows me around the small shelter in a bad part of Phnom Penh, all they can afford on a budget of $4,000 per month. In the backyard is a shack made of scrap wood, home of Cowboy, who Tan says belongs in a mental ward. “If we closed this place down, he’d be dead.”Yet, the irony is, deportees admit, being here may have saved their lives. “If I was back in the US, I’d either be in jail or dead,” says Boomer.“This is like a new chance,” explains Sarath Vong, who goes by the name of Boney. Chan, his cousin, he says, "was getting deep into drugs." Coming to Cambodia, he says, gives guys a chance to start fresh. "You gotta move on. It’s like playing cards. You just cannot keep playing the same cards. You gotta change.”Leaving the gangs – and gang violence – in the USA, he says, was the best break that ever happened to him. Now, 38, he has a job for the first time in his life. Also a new wife, marrying a local girl a few months ago.Dicer, 40, did the same. His family from the US flew to Cambodia to make all the arrangments. “They wanted me to settle in,” he says. "They know it will be good for me."Yet such advances aside, every single one of them – Boomer, Boney, Dicer – would trade it all for what they had and lost, what was promised, then taken away. “If I could go back?” Boney says, “In a minute! America is home.”

Ron Gluckman is an American reporter who has been living in and covering Asia since 1991. Since 2005, he has been dividing his time between Bangkok and Phnom Penh, where he immediately noticed an odd group of guys filling the local basketball court - baggy pants and hot-dog style suggesting typical Americans, but their stories anything but. He spent several years following this story, finally printing this story in Macau's Closer magazine in March 2008.

Source from Kampuchea Krom (southern Vietnam) reported that a numerous number of Vietnamese citizen and Vietnamese authorities have violently abused Khmer-Krom citizen a few days earlier due to property (land) related issue. They are jailed, beaten up, tortured, and their home is burnt down.The World Khmer-Krom Buddhist Association blamed Vietnam Authorities and their citizens for the human rights abuses towards one particular Khmer-Krom family recently due to a property related matter and asked for the international community worldwide to restrain Vietnam government for allowing such human rights abuses to take place.President of World Khmer-Krom Buddhist Association, Venerable Liv Pov, 70 years of age, gave a summary report behind the incident: On February 25th around 6 pm, soldiers, police, and a group of Vietnamese citizens have beaten Mrs. Ly Thi Huong and 8 members of her family who reside in Buerng Tunsar village, Vien An District, My Xien, Klaeng Province, Kampuchea Krom (southern Vietnam). He also added that they burned down her house, and took away one of Mrs. Ly Thi Huong’s brothers, Ly Suon and detained him.“High official of communist government, high official in the District and sub-district in the village have gathered, about 50 people andbrutally beaten Mrs. Ly Thi Huong and her family including her children and her mother. They were so brutally beaten that they had to be taken to the hospital. They were locked up, their home was burned down and their crops (rice) were harvested and taken away. Now they have nothing left, everything is all burnt in the fire including legal documents and money…”The inhuman incident occurred due to disputes of this particular farmland, Venerable Liv Pov added. Khmers Krom kept appealing to the Vietnam authorities because their farmlands have been taken away from them by the Vietnamese citizens. However, in Mrs. Ly Thi Huong’s case, the authorities never did anything to solve the problem because the authorities have actually given the lands to the Vietnamese citizens to own, and they gathered to beat up Mrs. Ly Thi Huong and her family, aiming to beat them up to death and burned down their house to eliminate the proof of land ownership (property rights).Lastly, Venerable Liv Pov added that his Association wants to condemn the Vietnamese government and its citizens for this atrocious incident, and seeks help from the international associations to put pressure towards Vietnam for letting their citizen to carry out this inhuman action towards the Khmer Krom people.Mr. Trinh Ba Cam, a spokesman for the Vietnamese Ambassador in Cambodia spoke in Khmer language when he said that there is always some sort of land issues in every country in the world.“I have nothing to say, but I believe there is no such story that the Vietnamese police or the Vietnamese citizens beaten up and did something like this toward Khmer people down there.”He also added that this is an accusation towards Vietnam and that it is just an act to gain political benefits.“Whatever the accusation is, we should not worry about it, because the accusation is to gain political benefits. If it is true then that is another issue that we should look into, but about the accusation, we are not going to pay any attention to it.”Mr. Ang Chan Rit, the Vice President of Khmer Kampuchea-Krom Human Rights organization confirmed that, he also received the same news from his people in Vietnam regarding this incident. However, he could not carry out further investigation regarding this issue because the Vietnam government prohibits any Human Rights organization to do any investigation in their country.“But no matter what, we will still intervene into this issue via the embassy and other borders guards to help stop and control such violent act from happening again.”

Between Tea Banh and Hun Sen, who would you support? គាំទ្រ ហ៊ុន សែន ឬ ទា បាញ់?

Between Hun Sen and Sok An, who would you support? គាំទ្រ ហ៊ុន​ សែន ឬ សុខ អាន?

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